Mary Bousted: The Benefits of Art and Creativity for Educators Wellbeing, and Students Development

On the 28th May schools are being encouraged to fill their social media channels with the arts; drawing, painting, music, dance, poetry, and drama. It was conceived by 9 education unions as a “badly needed antidote to the misery and disruption of Covid-19". Using the hashtag #EduArtsFest we can all enjoy the vibrant and life affirming energy that this youthful outpouring of creativity will provide. Find out more about it here. 

Art and creativity are not just for our students. It’s for us, and it’s for everyone. Making art and being creative is a rejuvenating activity that we all need right now. We have made a new resource 'Discovering Creativity for Educators' to help educators take time out and rejuvenate themselves, and get ideas for the classroom too. Its free for educators, and you can find it here: 

Online Resource: Discovering Creativity for Educators


Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, talked to us about the benefits of art and creativity for the wellbeing of teachers as well as the development of young people.


SSF: Why is arts and creativity important in education?


Mary: I think that the arts are a primary act of mind. We know that there are ancient rock paintings being discovered which are much older than previously thought. Storytelling is a primary act of mind. We tell our life in stories. When we talk about our day, we tell a story. When we're remembering things, we tell a story. Stories are a way of making sense of the world. The arts are a way of making sense of the world. It's about expressing feelings and emotions and also reacting to the world.


As such it’s what defines our humanity our creativity defines us as human. We are the only animals which are creative in this way. That's why if education is to engage and develop the potential of the human being, it has to engage fundamentally and centrally with creativity and with the arts, in all their forms. If we don't do that, then we're not focusing on what is educating children and young people in the essence of what is human.


SSF: What do young people miss out on if they don’t have the opportunity to engage with arts and creativity in education.


Mary: If there wasn't an arts education in school and a creative education, then they miss out on the ability to develop all sorts of skills. Developing their imagination, developing ways to express how they’re feeling, the ability to move well, and speak well, translate what they are feeling or what they are experiencing into something really creative. Whether through art or through music or through drama.


If we want a broad and balanced curriculum something which will inspire and engage children and young people then absolutely the arts and creativity needs to be at the centre of that.


For myself when I was at school, I actually didn't enjoy school much. I always find people who enjoyed school to be rather odd, and I didn't enjoy school like a lot of people who then became teachers. One of my motivations for becoming a teacher was not to do to my pupils what was done to me. For me drama and music were the things which kept me at school. I was in the choir, that was hugely important, and I was in every play. My triumph was playing Oberon in ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’ at a girls school. I loved everything about the plays. I love the rehearsals, I love the friendships you made when you were rehearsing, I love the thrill of the performance. For me that was another world. The magic of that other world was so important, and I know that gave me more confidence, it gave me the confidence to speak in public, it was such an important part of my school life. It was the only bit of my school life that I really enjoyed, apart from the English lessons.


SSF: Can art and creativity be brought into all areas of the curriculum?


Mary: I think bringing art and creativity into every topic is really important, but unfortunately, I don't think it happens too much now. I think the pressure of the accountability framework means that children spend a lot of their time in school sitting down listening, and then writing. I think that things are really being missed, particularly oracy and the use of talk to learn, and also creativity. It’s becoming more and more difficult to make those cross curricular links to insert creativity into other subjects. I think that's becoming really hard.


I think that's also part to do with the separation of subjects in a very rigid way. Lots of schools are now looking at the curriculum and the arts and creativity are really in danger. Because in the EBacc1 you just have one creative subject. We've seen already a decline in the number of children taking creative subjects at GCSE and funding cuts provide even bigger threats to that.


SSF: Is there a benefit for educators to make art and creative activities for themselves?


Mary: I think if teachers are creative themselves it gives them far greater confidence to introduce creativity with their pupils, and into their curriculum, and into their work, because it gives them something concrete to draw on. Actually, if you've experienced yourself, the immense pleasure of creativity, then that gives you confidence as well to think this is important, this is necessary, I know this for myself and I want it for my pupils.


I think it would be fantastic for more educators, more teachers, to be able to live creative lives. But I also think it would be fantastic for teachers to spend more time with their family and have some leisure time. With working hours approaching 50 hours a week that's really hard. I think the problem for us as a society is that we exhaust our teachers. Indeed, I'm writing a book about it so it's on my mind a lot at the moment. But if we could free up teachers’ time, and they could engage in creative activities, it would be so good for their own physical well-being, their mental well-being, and their mental health. It would be something that would enrich their lives and give something back to them, because at the moment teachers’ energy is just sapped through intense pressure and excessive work.


SSF: What would you say about our new resource ‘Discovering Creativity for Educators’?


Mary: Listen I know you're exhausted if you're a teacher. I know that you've got far too much work to do. But this is a fantastic resource, you can dip into it and spend 3 minutes getting fantastic ideas, about creative writing, about art, about music, about drama, about how to use creativity. The other thing is that it’s ideas from around the world, so if you're concerned about decolonizing your curriculum, if you're concerned about introducing themes and issues from around the world which reflects the cultural heritage of the pupils that you teach, or want to widen your pupils’ cultural heritage, then use this resource it's really fantastic.





We are really thrilled to be able to offer this resource, we are adding to it all the time, so have a look and keep popping back to see what more has been added. We’d like to thank all the contributors and also Mary Bousted for taking the time to speak with us about the importance of art and creativity in education.


We hope that many of you are able to join with others schools in filling social media with art and creativity with the young people that you work with on the 28th May, and remember to use the hashtag #EduArtsFest so that we can all appreciate it.




1 The English Baccalaureate (EBacc) is an accountability measure in England. It measures the proportion of children who secure a grade 5 or above in English, Maths, Science, a humanity and language GCSE. Arts subjects are not included.



Steve Sinnott • May 25, 2021

36 Bicycles. Countless Futures in The Gambia.

By Ann Beatty • May 20, 2026
How a simple act of practical solidarity is transforming the journey to school in The Gambia’s Central River Region North Policies have been written. Schools have been built. Yet for many children in The Gambia’s Central River Region North, access to education is still measured in kilometres, not opportunity. 

Education for Hope in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous Times

By Laura Griffin • May 13, 2026
‘In a single hour vast tracts of shaded woodland became a jumble of torn trees and upturned soil, exposed to the glare of the summer sun. Such land-clearing events are rare, but forests exhibit remarkable resilience in the face of disaster. I’m told that the Chinese character for ‘catastrophe’ is the same as that which represents the word ‘opportunity’. And, the blowdown, while catastrophic, presented opportunities for many species.’ (Wall Kimmerer, 2003: 89). In the context of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world (Stein, 2021) what kinds of education for hope might support children’s and young people’s critical engagement in local and global issues? In the spirit of exploring the possibilities of hope further, this short article focuses on the area of global citizenship and sustainabilityrelated education. It will briefly open by sharing commonalities across pedagogical approaches that take up the concept and act of hope more critically, and close by offering reflective questions for educators, with suggestions for further reading. Perhaps it is a kind of hope that is grounded in the present, in future reimagining(s), in ethical solidarity, and an acknowledgement of our deep entanglement with the living metabolism of planet earth 1 our singular home (UNESCO, 2021); a hope that engages with complex root causes and lived realities of multiple overlapping crises in critically reflexive and contextually relevant ways. As McCloskey notes, ‘Hope can fire our collective imagination and critical consciousness as a mainspring to activism and intervention in the world.’ (2025: 3). Commonalities across critical pedagogical approaches to hope include: Acknowledging the context of a ‘seamless single story of progress, development and human evolution’ (Andreotti, V.D.O., 2021b Relating to social and ecological justice and the wellbeing of people and planet Using participatory, action-orientated and inquiry-based learning processes Exploring diverse worldviews and perspectives Practising grounding in the present with opening up possibilities for change (relational, embodied, response-able 2 ) Experiencing ‘struggle’ in different forms (dialogical, selfreflexive, open-ended) Engaging individual and collective agency, action and activism Looking for lifelong and life-wide learning and unlearning. 1 See ‘Co-sensing with Radical Tenderness’, in Machado de Oliveira Andreotti. 2021a 2 See ‘Crossing Borders’ in 2 Depth Education “Depth Education and the Possibility of GCE Otherwise, 2021b. Source: Andreotti, V. 2021a & 2021b., Atif, A. (2025)., Bourn, D. 2021., Bryan. A. and Mochizuki,Y., 2024., Giroux, H.A. 2025., Meade, E. 2025. Whilst engaging in the concept and act of hope more critically reflect upon: What kinds of education for hope might you explore further and why? How might you provide generative spaces for engaging in diverse worldviews and perspectives? In what ways can you facilitate individual and collective agency? How might you support learners’ practice grounding in the present in order to relate differently? In what ways can you support learners in navigating complex root causes and lived realities of local and global issues? As Chief Ninawa Hini Kui affirms, ‘The future depends much less on the images we project ahead than on our capacity to repair relations and build relationships differently in the present.’ (Andreotti et al, 2023: 73. An invitation for further reading: Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future . d’Abreu, C., Belgeonne, C., Bourn, D. and Hatley, J. (2025) ‘Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future’. DERC Research Paper 24. London: UCL Institute of Education. Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. Machado de Oliveira Andreotti, V. (2021a) ‘Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism’ , London: Penguin Random House. Development Education and Hope . McCloskey, S. (2025). (ed) ‘Development Education and Hope’. ‘Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review’ , Vol. 41, Autumn. Centre for Global Education, Belfast. Link to and download the full reference list here

I heard it said today by a friend that “You learn a language best when you use it to speak and write about things that are important to you. ”

By Susan Piper • May 6, 2026
This summed up to me about why I volunteer for the Hands Up Project. HUP is a charity trust which, through its network of volunteers, connects children around the world with young people in Palestine. By means of online interaction, drama and storytelling activities, it enables the use of creativity and selfexpression to promote mutual understanding, personal growth, and the development of English language skills. I joined HUP in 2020 during COVID. After going to Palestine in 2017, I wanted to get more involved in working with Palestinian children in schools. HUP gave me the opportunity to link up with schools in the West Bank and Gaza. Every week I’d tell them stories from all over the world, then we’d discuss it, play games and I’d get them to retell it. Sometimes we would work from their coursebook English for Palestine’ in mutual team teaching sessions with their teacher. The simple act of telling a story became much more than entertainment. It became connection, healing, and a bridge to the world beyond their immediate reality to help them improve their language skills, and to give them a platform to speak about their lives in a language that connects them to people everywhere. I loved it, every week, seeing their smiling faces on the screen and building long lasting friendships with their teachers. I even went to Gaza in 2023 and met some of the kids I’d only seen on Zoom. It was a beautiful experience and something I will never forget. As hostilities escalated, I lost contact with everyone. I thought about where the kids were and what had happened to them. As I watched schools being bombed, universities flattened, and people killed in their thousands, I thought about where the kids I’d met were and what was happening to them. I kept in contact with many of the teachers I knew and heard daily news of displacement, destruction, hunger and bombing. Recently, I’ve started to link up again with children in Gaza, and it feels wonderful to be back helping them learn after being denied an education for over two years. Connecting with children in Palestine is more than just words. When a child in Palestine confidently tells their story to someone on the other side of the world, bridges are built, empathy grows, and the world gains a fuller picture of childhood in contexts far from peace and privilege. My work with these children is rooted in the belief that education and voice are inseparable. Through storytelling and English language learning, I witness children not just learning new vocabulary, but reclaiming their narratives, believing in their potential, and finding human connection in a world they perceive has abandoned them. And more than anything, this work reminds us all that children — everywhere — deserve to learn, to speak, and to be heard. Links to HUP information, books and resources: The Hands Up Project BY SUSAN PIPER Susan Piper is currently an ESOL teacher in Oldham, Greater Manchester and has worked in education for over 30 years. She is also a volunteer for the Hands Up Project and is the International Solidarity Officer and President of her NEU district. She believes in quality education for all and aims to make her lessons creative and inclusive so that effective language learning can take place.